5 sense trick to stop a panic attack
9 Tips To Help You Get Through A Panic Attack
Panic attacks can be physically and mentally exhausting, and they are often difficult to manage. We reached out to members of our community for suggestions on how to cope with panic attacks and anxiety. Here are some helpful ideas that you came up with.
1. Know your triggers
“Increasing self-awareness and knowledge about your own mental health is always a plus. The more you KNOW your triggers and how your anxiety presents itself, the easier it will be to talk yourself through an attack.” – Mindy H.
2. Leave the situation
“I remove myself from the situation immediately, go home, and pet my dogs… it’s the best I can do right now. I have to take care of myself, and when my body is sending me distress signals, I have learned to respond before I have a meltdown.” – Cathy M.
[At work or in public] “I hide in bathrooms… I feel safe in the cubicles.” – Jon I.
“I go for a walk. Even if I’m at work, a quick 10 or 15 minute walk works wonders.” – Melissa S.
3. Grounding techniques
“I look around to find 5 things I can see, 4 things I can touch, 3 things I can hear, 2 things I can smell, and 1 thing I can taste. It’s called grounding.” – Sam A.
“Grounding techniques…. Focus on what’s around you, what it looks like, the smell, the texture.” – Gia S.
“Look around you for…
- 5 things you can see
- 4 things you can touch
- 3 things you can hear
- 2 things you can smell
- 1 thing you can taste
This is called ‘grounding’. It can help when you feel like you have lost control of your surroundings and/or your head.” – Tracy K.
4. Meditation and mindful breathing
“I pay attention to my breathing. At first it’s loud and fast, then a few moments later it starts to slow down and quiet down. I sit on the floor and continuously say three words: peace, joy, love.
I don’t care how long it takes. When the attack passes I feel lighter and forget why I panicked.” – Myta S.
“Focusing on the breath. Don’t let one thought become two. Don’t let two thoughts become three. Focus on the breath. Repeat.” – Chana B.
“Focus on your breathing as much as you can. Recognize that you’re not breathing correctly and try to correct that right off the bat. Redirect your thinking to something else, whether that be a person, an activity, an animal, pretty much anything so you’re not bombarded with bad thoughts that’ll only make things worse. Try to give yourself affirmations – mine is usually ‘I will be okay’ over and over again. If you’re having bad thoughts about whatever caused your panic attack (‘he hates me,’ ‘I’ll never be good enough,’ ‘nothing is okay, etc), deflect them as best you can. You don’t have to believe whatever you’re saying to deflect it, but do so anyway. He doesn’t hate you. You are good enough. Even if things currently aren’t okay, you can get to a point where they’re manageable or even are entirely okay.
” – Briana H.
5. Visualize a safe place
“Start mindful breathing.
Close my eyes and think of a safe place (mine is the beach).
Vividly think of all five senses being activated in the safe place (the view of the beach, the sound of the waves, the feel of the water and sand, the smell and the taste of the salty air as I breathe).
Tell myself I am safe. Nothing can harm me.
Relax my body gradually until I can open my eyes and breathe normally and come ‘back to reality.’” – Desirae C.
6. Counting
“Recently I found that trying to focus on something else such as counting numbers out of order works, because it requires concentration. You could try counting the numbers 1 to 9 out of order or something like subtracting 7’s or 3’s from 100 as many times as possible.” – Melanie Luxenberg
7. Let it happen/ride it out
“Ride the wave and say ‘I’m okay, nothing is wrong with me, this will be over soon.
’” – Nicole W.
8. Talk to a friend or family member
“When I feel a panic attack coming, quickly I contact my husband or text my best friend with angry and sad emojis. That’s a code between us that I’m overwhelmed, needing reassurance.” – Belinda H.
“I have to be around people… it’s better for me to distract myself by being somewhere where there’s other people. A mall, grocery store. Or meet up with a friend” – Ellen F.
9. Other suggestions
“If I’m at work, I go to bathroom and run cold water over the inside of my wrist. Press pressure point in web between thumb and first finger. This forces me to take a deep breath. Repeat until calm.” – Sharon M.
“I find a dark room to lay down and I focus on the color black, I imagine black and keep saying it in my head.” – Rachael B.
“Ice cold pop top water bottle. Helps me to control my breathing and calm myself down. One big gulp of water and then just hold the bottle top in my mouth, forcing me to breathe through my nose.
” – Jennifer T.
“I go ‘upside down’. Literally lay over the edge of a couch, bench, chair, whatever and just breathe. The different perspective helps me remember to breathe and focus only on the things I can see around me.” – Amanda F.
“I can’t explain why, but when I have a panic attack I need pressure on my stomach. I’ll push my stomach in over the back of a chair, or lay on an exercise ball – tummy down. Strange, but comforting.” – Theresa D.
“My biggest piece of advice during a panic attack is to look in the mirror. I often depersonalize or dissociate during panic attacks, and looking in the mirror and talking out loud to myself is only thing that keeps me grounded and helps me through it.” – Whitney Parrish
These are some suggestions you can try on your own. You might also want to meet with a mental health professional for more help; Cognitive Behavioral Therapy and Dialectical Behavioral Therapy are two types of therapy that can be helpful for managing anxiety and panic attacks.
With the help of a trained therapist, you can learn these techniques and/or find what methods work best for you to manage your panic attacks.
If you are in a crisis, help is available. Call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-TALK (8255). You can also reach the Crisis Text Line by texting START to 741-741. For a list of international crisis centers visit this page: http://iasp.info/resources/Crisis_Centres/. If you are not in a crisis and would like someone to talk to online, visit the website www.7cups.com to chat for free with a trained listener.
The Best 5-Senses Grounding Techniques for Anxiety Relief
Everyone feels anxious at one time or another. But did you know that engaging your five senses may help calm your worries?
Not everyone experiences anxiety in the same way, and what may offer anxiety relief to you may not work for someone else.
While many people take medications or attend therapy to manage anxiety symptoms, exercises that engage your five senses may also be helpful.
This is particularly so when you need something that works right here, right now.
Indeed, intentionally focusing on hearing, touch, smell, taste, and sight might offer quick relief.
For someone with anxiety, knowing how to effectively use all five senses can be a powerful tool.
Grounding techniques are strategies that help connect or “ground” you in the present moment. They’re essentially a form of mindfulness, which has been shown to help many different mental health conditions.
A large 2014 research review with nearly 19,000 studies concluded that mindfulness-based stress reduction programs can ease symptoms of anxiety, depression, and pain.
Experts believe that grounding techniques, specifically, help you detach from emotional pain, so you can better regulate your emotions.
Grounding encourages you to take a break from your negative thoughts that may be causing anxiety until you’ve calmed down.
Grounding methods for anxiety are different from other relaxation exercises in that they focus heavily on distractions and quieting extreme emotions.
A small 2015 study found that just 1 hour of grounding exercises helps improve mood in people with anxiety and depression more than relaxation alone.
An added benefit of grounding techniques is that they can be done at any time, without anyone else knowing that you’re using them.
One popular grounding technique is the 5-4-3-2-1 method. Here’s how to practice your five senses grounding.
First, you may want to start with a simple deep breathing exercise called the 5-5-5 method. To do this, you breathe in for 5 seconds, hold your breath for 5 seconds, and then breathe out for 5 seconds.
You can continue this process until your thoughts slow down or you notice some relief.
When you can find your breath, try practicing the 5-4-3-2-1 technique. For that, you want to look around and focus on:
- 5 things you see
- 4 things you feel
- 3 things you hear
- 2 things you smell
- 1 thing you taste
The idea is that the 5-4-3-2-1 technique helps you shift your focus to what’s currently happening around you instead of what’s making you feel anxious.
Focusing on each of your senses is a simple way to distract yourself from those thoughts that may be causing your anxiety.
Consider choosing a couple of exercises for each sense and trying to focus all your attention on the sensations.
Sight
To engage your sense of sight, here are some ideas:
- Look at every little detail on a family photo on the wall.
- Focus on a small object, such as a pencil or coffee mug, and identify every color and shape.
- Look at the sky for clouds, birds, sunrises, or anything else you can spot around.
- Focus your attention on a plant or flower and how it moves with the wind.
- Observe a pet while they play or rest.
You can pick large or small items to focus on. Once you choose an object, try to notice the color, texture, and patterns.
Touch
Activating your sense of touch can help distract you from anxious thoughts and may help you decrease the physical signs of anxiety.
You might want to try these exercises:
- Put your hands under running water, alternating between warm and cold temperatures every 30 seconds.
- Focus on how your clothing feels on your body or how your hair feels on your head.
- Touch different body parts by pressing down and holding for 30 seconds before moving to a different area.
- Touch the furniture in your living area and focus on its texture. For example, take notice of a smooth table.
Hearing
Focusing on external sounds can help ground you in the moment.
Here are some noises to notice:
- a barking dog
- a stomach rumbling
- a clock ticking
- traffic outside
- a car or subway engine
- music
- conversation
- birds singing
- the wind blowing
Smell
To incorporate smell into your grounding techniques, you may want to try these tips:
- Walk into your bathroom and sniff a bar of soap or shampoo.
- Light a scented candle.
- Diffuse a scented oil.
- Take in simple smells around you, such as the scent of a pillow on the couch or a pencil.
- Walk outside and breathe deeply through your nose. Maybe you will smell fresh cut grass or flowers blooming.
Taste
Try to pick something that you can easily taste, such as:
- a piece of gum
- a mint
- coffee
- sugar and salt
- a piece of food
You don’t actually have to taste these items if you don’t have them on hand. Instead, try thinking about the distinct flavors as you remember them.
Here are some additional tips to consider that can help when trying to engage your 5 senses to calm down:
- Begin grounding yourself in your senses as soon you realize you’re experiencing strong emotions or a difficult mood.
- Don’t make good or bad judgements. For instance, if you’re focusing on a brown wall but don’t like the color brown, simply tell yourself: “The wall is brown,” instead of, “I don’t like brown.”
- Do your best to focus on the present, not the past or future. If your thoughts wander, softly bring them back to your senses.
- Notice your mood before and after using a technique to see if it’s working for you. You might want to use a scale of 0 to 10 to rate your symptoms. Noticing relief may calm you down even more.
- Be flexible. If you notice one method is more successful than another, stick with that without judgement.
- Don’t give up. It might take a few attempts before grounding methods are successful.
Engaging all your five senses may help reduce symptoms of stress and worry.
You can follow simple grounding exercises that activate your five senses — sight, touch, hearing, smell, and taste. For example, simply listening to birds chirping or smelling fresh cut grass could help you focus less on your anxious thoughts and more on the present moment.
If you’re having a difficult time managing your anxiety, you may want to consider reaching out to a mental health expert. They can provide you with additional tools to manage your symptoms and discover the root cause of the anxiety.
8 doctor's advice on how to stop a panic attack
It seems that the usual reality is bursting at the seams, we are disturbed by disturbing thoughts - all this provokes the occurrence of nervous disorders and panic attacks. Together with emergency doctor Maria Kovalchuk, we figure out how you can help yourself in such a difficult time for the psyche.
Author:
medical editor Ekaterina Mazeina
3 minutes
We lose control of ourselves when we have a panic attack. But it is important to understand that this condition can be dealt with, because it does not pose a physical threat to a person. It is important to learn to pull yourself together and slowly return to normal life.
Panic attack is a sudden attack of intense fear that causes severe physical reactions. There is usually no real danger or obvious reason. When panic attacks happen, you may think that you are having a heart attack or that you are even dying.
Mayo Clinic Inhalations and exhalations should be conscious, long, deep. Deep breathing helps ease the response to stress and anxiety. You can use different breathing techniques:
-
Diaphragmatic breathing, in which the abdominal wall should rise on inhalation and fall on exhalation.
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Simple slow breathing. It is better to inhale through the nose and exhale through the mouth. Shoulders and back need to be straightened.
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Using account. You need to inhale and exhale, each time counting to four. It’s good if you can focus on counting and breathing.
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Breath-hold. If inhalations and exhalations become frequent, superficial, you can hold your breath after inhalation for a few seconds. This will help you breathe more slowly and deeply.
2. Find a quiet place
During an attack, it is better to find a calm, quiet place where there will be fewer people.
It is desirable that you can sit there, relax until normal health is restored. A separate room, foyer or study will do. You can just go outside and sit on a bench. You need to take a comfortable position, try to relax. It is recommended to use meditation or relaxation techniques. This will help you deal with anxiety.
If you have nowhere to go, you can just close your eyes for a while and focus on your breathing. The method helps especially well if the attack begins due to the fact that a person finds himself in a crowd, in a moving vehicle, at a holiday.
4. Imagine something pleasant
You can cope with fear and anxiety by imagining something pleasant, safe, associated with positive emotions. It can be a place where a person feels comfortable, a beloved animal, someone close. The main thing is that the image evokes positive emotions and helps to calm down.
Read everything about panic attacks and fighting them on MedPortal.
Read article
5.
Tighten and relax your muscles To relieve an attack, you can use the simplest muscle relaxation technique: for example, alternately tense and relax individual muscle groups. It can be the muscles of the back, arms, legs, abdomen. Tension and subsequent relaxation helps to control the state of the muscles, focus on it, distracting from anxiety and fear. Such exercises help you learn to quickly distinguish between tense and relaxed muscles, recognizing the approach of a panic attack.
6. Remember that the attack will end soon
In a few minutes, a strong fear will let you go. You can repeat to yourself that fear is only caused by a panic attack, that this condition does not need to be controlled, that it will quickly pass by itself. This will help to get rid of the fear of death and the feeling of impending danger.
7. Take control of your health
A panic attack can feel like a heart attack or suffocation. It is necessary to be examined by a doctor, to monitor the state of health, so as not to confuse a panic attack with symptoms of a dangerous condition.
If such episodes happen regularly, tell your therapist about them, describe how you feel during them. This will help you understand if the symptoms are really related to stress, anxiety, or they have another reason. Regular diagnosis and health care help reduce anxiety levels.
8. Focus on sensations
Attacks are often accompanied by a feeling of unreality of what is happening, a feeling of detachment, detachment, loss of control. The ability to focus will help to cope with this. You need to focus on familiar sensations: for example, the texture of the fabric under your fingers or the tactile sensations when you feel the keys. By focusing on them, you can distract from the anxiety that provokes an attack in order to maintain control over the situation.
To make it easier to focus on sensations, you can carry a special object for this: for example, a key chain, a pen, or any other small, well-known object. If a panic attack begins at a time when there is nothing suitable at hand, you can focus on any subject, note all its features to yourself.
It can be a clock on the wall, a tree on the street, a parked car, a view from the window: any object that will help shift attention.
Comments Cackl e
causes, symptoms, prevention and treatment
Sudden dizziness, palpitations, unreasonable fear and a feeling that this is it, certain death. Thirty years ago, this disease was not taken too seriously and was considered far-fetched. And now the incidence of panic attacks is growing exponentially every year. Let's talk about how you can deal with them.
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Women Health
Doctor's advice
Psychological problems
A panic attack is a sudden attack of anxiety, a terrible fear that can end in a real tantrum.
It usually starts at moments of stress for the body. For example, when you ride the subway in the heat or find yourself in a stuffy crowd. Most often, it can be found in large cities, and it overcomes people with increased anxiety, as a rule, perfectionists. Alas, in most cases, panic attacks occur in young women between the ages of 20 and 30 years.
We talked to the doctor and found out the main points regarding this mysterious disease. What are panic attacks from a medical point of view, how to respond to an attack and how you can prevent their recurrence in the future.
How to understand that a panic attack has happened to you
Dmitry Soloviev
general practitioner, editor of the-challenger.ru portal
If we are talking about an illness, the duration of an attack can be from 5 to 30 minutes. Often girls ask specialists if a panic attack can last several hours.
Unfortunately, yes, in rare cases it lasts up to several days. Just not every excitement that we experience for loved ones, before an important exam or report, is considered a panic. You will be able to distinguish an attack by a number of features and the nature of manifestations.
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Panic attack symptoms
As the name suggests, the main symptom of a panic attack in women is a sudden and seemingly unexplained attack of anxiety and fear. It is accompanied by unpleasant sensations: palpitations, a rush of cold sweat, trembling in the legs, chest pain, difficulty breathing, and so on. Symptoms can be very different, the main thing is that they should disappear without a trace in 5-20 minutes, along with a feeling of fear. But this is not always the case.
The diagnosis of a panic attack cannot be made on the basis of symptoms alone: one must make sure that the symptoms are not caused by some other disease (for example, heart disease). The fact is that a panic attack in itself usually does not cause any harm. The symptoms and signs of a panic attack in women are extremely unpleasant, but pass quite quickly.
The main trouble is the fear that the attack will happen again. For example, after a panic attack on the subway, it can be very difficult for a person to go down to the subway again. This becomes a real problem. Such fear can be “self-fulfilling”: a person experiences stress, and under the influence of stress, a panic attack develops again. In severe cases, agoraphobia can form - a condition where almost any interaction with society causes bouts of fear and discomfort, and a person is forced to spend his life locked up.
What is a panic attack from the point of view of physiology
Consider, from the point of view of physiology, how a panic attack manifests itself. This is an unreasonably sharp response of the nervous system to an external stimulus, which in reality is not dangerous at all. All of her symptoms are part of the fight-or-flight defense mechanism that kicks in, say, when she encounters a bear in the woods. In these cases, indeed, there is reason for fear, and a frequent heartbeat makes it possible to run faster. However, for a reason that is not entirely clear, this mechanism sometimes works "without a bear", that is, for no apparent reason.
Panic attacks have similar symptoms to vegetative-vascular dystonia (VVD), and treatment will also be identical. The latter is a disorder of the autonomic nervous system, which is described only in the domestic literature. Abroad, such a diagnosis is not widely used: it does not say anything about the cause of the disease, characterizing only its mechanism.
If you read the comments of experts on the forums, there is no fundamental difference between VVD and panic attacks. Panic reflects an acute attack of VVD, or an attack becomes the most striking symptom of dystonia, so an equal sign is often put between them.
Causes of panic attacks
In order to start a certain mechanism in the body, some kind of danger must arise (imaginary, exaggerated by our perception), and the reaction to it will result in a panic attack. Adrenaline is released and the sympathetic nervous system is activated. Blood rushes to the internal organs, blood pressure rises, causing a feeling of suffocation.
This is how panic attacks manifest themselves after the coronavirus. As a result of the infection, there is a lack of oxygen in the body, damage to the vessels of the pulmonary circulation is often observed. Therefore, any increased load is accompanied by a lack of oxygen.
As a rule, the causes that lead to panic attacks are physical or mental uncomfortable conditions. This may be excessive stress during training, overwork at work, alcohol abuse. Often, severe conflict situations and chronic stress lead to seizures.
When anxiety increases, panic attacks and bodily manifestations also increase. The heart beats strongly, it seems that the whole world is collapsing and this only makes it worse.
Constant or periodic neurosis and panic attacks make a person's life unbearable. In this state, it is difficult to work and coexist calmly with loved ones. The more a person is afraid to go out into the street, the less he experiences positive emotions, focusing on his own fears. If there were examples of this disease in the family, one should be especially attentive to attacks and not ignore them.
What to do if you have a panic attack
At the moment when an attack occurs, there is no way to analyze the causes and reason rationally. But there are several ways that will tell you what to do with a panic attack.
- Take a few breaths into any container. It can be a plastic cup or even a bag - just calmly breathe into it.
So you can quickly stabilize your breathing and cope with panic. - Switch your attention to something external. For example, count the columns at a subway station or the buttons on a passer-by's jacket. Any concentration on foreign objects will help you both come to your senses and again feel connected to reality and cope with a panic attack.
- Stay where you are, or better yet, sit down. During a panic attack, try to limit your movements, if possible, sit down and, as it were, “freeze”. This method, like the previous one, helps to focus on the world around you, and not on your unpleasant sensations.
- Talk to someone. Yes, it may seem strange at first glance, but a random passer-by, to whom you turn for help, is able to help you simply by his attention. Communication with another person will give a feeling of security and distract from a panic attack.
5 tips for preventing panic attacks
Unfortunately, medicine does not know exactly why panic attacks occur.
Therefore, advice on how to deal with panic attacks is more about lifestyle. Some moments you can change and control. Use the general recommendations, and they will help you avoid seizures in the future.
- Do not lead a sedentary lifestyle. There is a scientific assumption that the occurrence of panic attacks is associated with a lack of endorphins that our body produces during physical exertion. Therefore, even light aerobic training and walking can make your life much easier.
- Try not to be nervous. Yes, we know this recommendation sounds ridiculous. How can you do without stress when life is so difficult, and panic attacks are ready to appear on every occasion. But calmness and only calmness will save you from attacks and other ailments.
- Do not drink coffee or cut down on it. Caffeine in large quantities causes a rapid heartbeat and can provoke a panic attack at the most unexpected moment.
- Be careful with alcohol. According to experts, alcoholic beverages are the strongest pathogens that can cause unexpected body reactions and panic attacks.
Do not get carried away with them and try to avoid strong drinks. - Be careful with medicines. Analyze if the panic attack is related to taking a new drug? Sometimes a panic attack can be triggered by drugs, so let the doctor analyze the situation.
How to treat panic attacks
We have already found out that a single attack is not particularly dangerous, but sometimes the fear of its repetition leads you into a vicious circle. If panic attacks began to happen often and you can no longer cope with it on your own, it is better to consult a doctor. Until the consequences become too severe.
In cases where a persistent panic disorder develops, special breathing techniques, psychotherapy and antidepressants are used. Of course, all this happens under the supervision of a specialist who knows better how to get rid of panic attacks. The most effective combined treatment is medication and psychotherapy.
